The East Coast media company is creating Washington Post Radio in an agreement with Bonneville, a Salt Lake City-based media firm owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints that owns radio stations around the United States. The new station will broadcast locally and feature staff from the newspaper.

''This is a wonderful opportunity for The Washington Post to encourage the radio audience to read more of the newspaper,'' said Boisfeuillet Jones Jr., publisher of The Washington Post. The Post's circulation - like that of many other papers - has been on the decline in recent years.

Washington Post Radio will draw on content from the Post, with the paper's editors, reporters and columnists providing more context on their reporting. The station will also broadcast news and commentary from journalists and others outside the Post.

For its part, Bonneville describes the venture as a "work in progress, and in time we hope it will expand to be 24 hours a day," said Bob Johnson, the company's chief operating officer. "We are close to an arrangement with the Washington Nationals [baseball team], and if successful, there will be sports programming, as well as programming from The Washington Post."

It's also possible that Bonneville will broadcast the Post programming in other parts of the country, including Salt Lake City, Johnson said.

"We view this programming to be National Public Radio-like, and perhaps NPR with more energy. Just as NPR programming finds a home in lots of communities in America, perhaps this will, too."

The new station will take over the 1500 AM spot that Bonneville's all-news station WTOP holds. While still on its old signal Wednesday, WTOP also began broadcasting on 103.5 FM. By late March, officials said that will be its main home.

This is not the first time WTOP and The Washington Post have been linked. The Post bought a partial interest in the station from CBS in 1949, then purchased the rest in 1954 and began the all-news format in 1969. The Post sold WTOP in 1978. Two owners later, Bonneville bought it in 1997.

The new Post station will also be heard on 107.7 FM from Warrenton, Va., which airs WTOP. WTOP will continue to broadcast on two weaker stations: 820 AM from Frederick, Md., and 104.3 FM from Leesburg, Va.

Shares of Washington Post Co. rose $7.90 to close at $793 Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange.

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Tribune reporter Paul Beebe, The Associated Press and Bloomberg News contributed to this story.